Takara

Takara Co., Ltd. is a Japanese toy company founded in 1955. Takara merged with another prominent Japanese toy company, Tomy Co., Ltd., on March 1, 2006 with the new company making the unusual decision to adopt two different legal corporate names. In English the legal name of the company is simply TOMY Co. Ltd. while in Japanese the legal company name is the combined name, K.K. Takara-Tomy (株式会社タカラトミー ) TYO: 7867 .

Takara is perhaps best known as the company behind the transforming toys which became Transformers, after Hasbro proposed combining Takara's Diaclone and Micro Change toylines in 1984 to create the Transformers. Takara is also the originator of the hit toy lines Battle Beasts (BeastFormers in Japan), e-kara karaoke microphone, Battle B-Daman and Beyblade, all of which Hasbro also sold or distributed internationally. Takara continues to sell Microman, the basis for the hit toy line Micronauts, sold internationally by now defunct Mego beginning in the 70s and Choro-Q a mini pullback car, which has been running since 1978 and is marketed outside Japan as Penny Racer.

Both Takara and pre-merger Tomy have had strong relationships with Hasbro, which has distributed Takara's hit products such as Transformers, Beyblade, e-Kara and Battle B-Daman and Tomy's Zoids brands internationally. Although the merged company has stated that the Transformers business with Hasbro and the OEM business in general is not as profitable as direct distribution, the relationship with Hasbro on Transformers is low risk since Hasbro assumes the inventory risk internationally. This long-term relationship will certainly continue, as both Takara and Tomy have also long held the licenses to localize and distribute many Hasbro products in Japan, including The Game of Life, Blythe dolls, and Magic: The Gathering and Duel Masters trading card games by Takara and Monopoly, Furby, Super Soaker and Play-Doh by Tomy. Hasbro has also previously distributed Tomy's Pokemon toys in the US, though eventually started selling their own versions.(wikipedia)

This page will list both Takara toys and Hasbro toys that have been jointly produced by Takara.

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